LUKoil sells its share in Caspian project to Japanese company

LUKoil Overseas, one of the Russian oil giant's subsidiaries, sold its stock in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project to the Japanese oil company Inpex for some $1.354bn, a LUKoil official reported today. Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli is an offshore oil field in the Caspian Sea. LUKoil first announced its plans to sell its share in Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli in late 2002. The plan became a reality after BP and the Azerbaijani State Oil Company GNKAR gave their consent to the deal.

More than 5.8 million people voted for Nicholas Maduro at the presidential election in Venezuela. This is more than a quarter of registered voters. Why did those people vote for the man, who, as Western media write, took Venezuela to the brink of collapse?